Computer Specs for Designing 1

[eugenetyson]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if people here could give me some backing on computer specs for designing.

About 6 months ago I gave in specs for a new computer to run InDesign CS3, Photoshop and Illustrator and Acrobat from. I generally need all 4 products running all the time. But when I handed in the specs to the IT department, they and the Accounting department chopped it to bits and took off and reduced some of the specs I suggested.

Now it's come around again, I spent 50 minutes PDFing a 800 x 2000mm display banner and I spent much time last night getting it to PDF as I kept running out of memory.

So here's what I need, can others here just put down some specs that are needed to run all 4 programs simultaneously and produce large format prints.

I work on a Windows operating system. 2.13ghz Dual Core, 2gb RAM and a 256mb Quadro FX graphics card. It's not handling the stuff.

Recommendations?

 

[ArizonaGeek]

Your computer should handle the load pretty good. I would jump the RAM up to 4 gigs and maybe do a 512mb video card but I think the biggest thing you didn't mention was your hard drive. I would suggest going with a 10k RPM SATA drive for faster access.

If you are going to upgrade to a new computer I'd suggest a Quad Core processor or even better a Xeon Quad Core processor (pretty expensive though) and then 4 gigs of RAM, a 512mb video card and a 10k RPM hard drive. Keep good airflow in front and behind the PC, those 10k drives can run pretty warm.

Just my suggestions, I am sure there will be many others.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[eugenetyson]

Hard Drive Speed doesn't really concern me at the moment. Although I would love a 10k rpm hard drive. I think what I have will work. I was leaning towards the Quad core, and this is the third suggestion (different forums) for this. So good.

Thanks

 

[Nelviticus]

You need to identify the bottleneck. Is the PC slowing down because the processor is under heavy load or because Windows is thrashing away at the hard drive using oodles of virtual memory? If it's the latter, and your current CPU isn't being over-taxed, then moving to four cores won't help you.

Bring up task manager while you're working (right-click the task bar and select 'task manager') and make sure the 'performance' tab is showing. If both cores spend a lot of time maxed out then you know that the CPU is working flat out so an upgrade would be helpful.

You did say that you kept running out of memory though so a memory upgrade is definitely in order. You won't be able to use more than about 3.5 GB unless you're running a 64-bit operating system though.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[eugenetyson]

Many thanks for your replies, it's all excellent suggestions. Thank you so much. Keep them coming though. I'm issuing a report tomorrow on the specs for the computer. The more info the better.

Eugene

 

[dglienna]

Make sure that your swap file isn't set to default sizes.

-David
2006 & 2007 Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)
2006 Dell Certified System Professional (CSP)

 

[eugenetyson]

Well if it gives you a clue. This is what I was doing.

Opening Illustratot, I was drawing a sqaure to convert to a 3d cube as 800 x 800 mm wide and creating the cube.

So then I wanted to Map some of my art onto the cube. But there wasn't enough ram.

So I opened Photoshop. Copied over the cube into there. Inserted my 3, 800 x 800 images to be grafted onto the cube in photoshop. It's all 300 dpi too.

Then I wanted to save that, and place it into InDesign. I did that fine. Designed the 800 x 2000 mm banner. All at 300 dpi. And then I couldn't move it out of InDesign. Couldn't Print it, couldn't PDF it, couldn't save it as a JPEG, just kept giving me an Out of Memory Message.

I finally got the file to 300 dpi PDF, after taking extreme measures and waiting an hour to PDF it. Which I think is ridiculous, as I had other work to do as well and I can't be sitting for an hour waiting for the computer to tick over.

Thanks for your reply though. I am taking all accounts into great consideration and every little bit of information is vital to my final report/rant to the IT and the Accountants!

Cheers
Eugene

 

[paparazi]

A little more detail on your hardware would be helpful.
What dual core? older intel dual cores are vastly inferior to the present day Core2/quad offerings.
What hard drives
What motherboard (which chipset)important
What memory also important

It's easy just to recommend you get the latest and greatest but other have neglected to ask important information.

Specs, more detail
These programs.......do we know that they are written for quad core? I suspect a couple are but a quad core is useless if the program only uses two of them, in that case you are better with a dual core of faster clock speed.

Obviously hardware wise it has to be Intel Core2 Duo or Quad (depending upon the outcome of whether your software uses all four cores)
A motherboard with a later chipset ie: Intel 965/975/P35 etc
Lots of memory (note 3.5gig limitation on 32bit Windows)
But fast DDR2 ie:667/800 etc
A simple Raid across two relatively cheap Westerndigital 16mb Raid Edition SATA II hard drives (enterprize edition 5year warranty) is going to give you both speed and capacity.
Your graphics card is fine, the stuff you are doing is CPU/memory/chipset intensive and the graphics card has little to do with it.

My 2bobs worth.
Martin



We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[cheryl07]

I am also a graphic designer. I use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
I have a P4, 1.5 GB ram.
From reading all this, I am agreeing you should have a problem either. It almost sounds like you have problems even with simple designs.
I am wondering if you may have a bad stick of RAM or incompatible RAM. Do you have other RAM you can swap out with?

 

[eugenetyson]

It's nothing to do with the quality of my hardware. It's to do with the huge banners I'm making. It was 2 meters in height. It looked awesome when it was printed and on display. It was worth the hard ship and the long wait.

The problem is simply that I don't have a fast enough processor and I don't have enough RAM. Both issues are being addressed at the moment.

 

[paparazi]

Yup! lots of CPU power on a modern motherboard (recent chipset) supporting faster ram types and with reasonably fast storage.
It's just a case of ensuring that there are no bottle-necks.
There is really know point in installing the fastest CPU if things like the memory or supporting chipset are holding it back.
It does look as if a quad core in your case, would be the best option (for you type of number crunching work) a 64bit operating system would take the lid off how much memory you could install but may bring up other problems such as software compatibility.
Obviously going quad will dictate the necessity for a new motherboard and possibly ram and as I said to ensure that there are no bottlenecks you would be advised to seek a fast storage solution as well, either raid or fast 10K drives etc.
Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[eugenetyson]

If you check out the Adobe InDesign section of this site that's where I spend most of my days answering questions. I will give when I have something to give, and I will take whenever I need to take something. Forgive my cander, but I do help a lot out on this site, not just in this category as it's not my technical area. That's why I posted in this category. There are others better here suited to answer questions. And I'm sure my input wouldn't be of much use to anyone, sorry.

 

[paparazi]

eugenetyson .....

If you look at any of my posts you will have noticed that my "signiture" has been with me for several years now....

It's not aimed at you, just a reminder generally for new members to join in and participate, the words appear whenever I post.
Martin


We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[eugenetyson]

Oh, sorry paparazi. I thought it was part of your post. No worries then. Thanks for all your help. I didn't mean any disrespect or anything. I'm only new to this forum.. relatively. And I'm sorry I seem brash.

Apologies. There is no need to fall out over this